When the Airways Go Silent: Why Media Matters

From the Desk of Lori Shepherd, Executive Director

In 1933, the Nazi regime introduced a small, cheap radio called the Volksempfänger, or “People’s Receiver.” Its purpose was not to entertain, enlighten, or educate - it was to control. Designed to tune in only to state-approved broadcasts, it ensured that German citizens heard one voice: Hitler’s.

This past week, Mike Stewart, an avid radio collector, donated a 1938 model of the Volksempfänger VE301 DYM to Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center. This artifact donation brings to life an important piece of Holocaust history and illuminates how propoganda was used so aptly. The radio, once a tool of pluralism and discovery, became an instrument of ideological domination. Free press was not merely undermined, it was erased.

Today, we stand at crossroads that may appear less dramatic but is no less consequential. Because also this past week, we saw public radio and broadcasting defunded. Now, stations are shrinking, newsrooms are closing, and cultural programming is disappearing. While there are no government-issued radios restricting our frequencies, the slow suffocation of public media serves a similar purpose: narrowing the spectrum of ideas.

Public radio has long been one of the few remaining spaces for in-depth reporting, diverse voices, and civil discourse. It broadcasts in rural towns and dense cites, offering both news and nuance in a media landscape increasingly driven by clicks, outrage, and misinformation. When public radio loses funding, the communities it serves lose access to verified facts and trusted storytelling - especially those communities least likely to be courted by commercial media.

The Volksempfänger was a symbol of the dangers of centralized, controlling messagin. Today, the threat is not a device, but the deliberate erosion of platforms that amplify truth. As public media is weakened, we invite a vacuum that partisan noise is all too eager to fill.

Some will argue that in an age of podcasts and streaming, public radio is obsolete. But technology doesn’t replace trust. Algorithms don’t replace local reporters. And privatized media, beholden to advertisers and shareholders, cannot replace institutions committed to the public good.

Democracy depends on an informed public. Public media - free from corporate and political pressure - is not a luxury; it’s a safeguard. Cutting it may seem like a budgetary decision, But history reminds as that when governments shrink access to independent information, it is not only programming that disappears: dissent, dialogue, and demovracy are lost as well.

At Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center, the work involves both juxtaposing the lessons of the past with current reality, but also working intentionally to disrupt the cycles of history repeating itself. In the Holocaust Center we educate visitors on how propaganda was used in the Holocaust in the core exhibit, Ten Stages of Genocide. The Gumbiner Project works with community and interfaith groups to support the work of democracy throughout our community. And, coming this fall, the Allen & Marianne Langer Contemporary Human Rights Exhibit will open a new one-year exhibition centered on teaching students and visitors about media literacy, helping us all become media citizens and not just media consumers.

We hope you will join us in this work by visiting the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center, getting involved with our programs and projects, and by making your own voice hears politically and personally.

Learn more at www.tjmhc.org

Below: 1938 Volksempfänger in TJMHC’s Ten Stages of Genocide Exhibit